


To Sam

by posingasme



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, M/M, Pining Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 11:35:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7572625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/posingasme/pseuds/posingasme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel spends a bit of time trying to express his feelings in a very human way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Sam

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by "To M-" by EA Poe, written for the July Rare Ships Challenge.

“I'm alone tonight.

“I fly high over the earth, keeping watch, keeping faith. I have ever seen the world differently. You know this better than most, Sam.”

Castiel closed his eyes, and set his pen down to rub them. He was no writer. But he had to express himself somehow, and if he had learned anything from Metatron, it was that words were powerful and important. He lifted the pen again into a hand that never trembled before he had met the Winchesters. Not until he had taken Sam's hand in both of his for the first time.

He wrote in simple calligraphy which would have made Metatron smirk. But it was the best he could do. He would never pretend to be a writer. He was a soldier. Sharp flicks of a pen were the best he could offer a scholar like Sam Winchester.

“I see everything differently. Not like any angel, nor like any human that has ever been. I think we are each unique in that way, Sam.

“Tonight was spent a mile above the ground, just to stretch my wings and reassure myself they were still there. I daydreamed in the clouds, just to prove to myself that no one else was manipulating my mind and telling me to hurry along on my next mistake. It seems all parts are accounted for, save one. My Grace is my own, my mind, my wings, my vessel, my guilt, all intact. But one piece neglects to answer when I call it to me.

“It seems my heart belongs with Sam Winchester."

It had been a stormy life. Something Metatron had forced on him tickled at his mind. He spoke aloud, softly. “Then-in my childhood-in the dawn of a most stormy life-was drawn from ev’ry depth of good and ill the mystery which binds me still-”

Castiel sighed. He continued to write.

“It's clear that love will never be easy for me. I should say a creature such as myself, but are there any others? I'm bitter and humiliated to find that the closest angel I resemble is that which you and Heaven hate the most, the Morningstar himself. Perhaps that is fitting. I hope you never compare me side by side to that older brother in your mind. I don't want you to see what I see. Pride has ever been my greatest sin. It should goeth before the fall, but I have found that my pride survived the fall better than the rest of me.

“Sam, I will never hand you this letter, and I know it. But I need to tell you how beautiful your world is because you are in it. This world should be burning right now, soaked in War’s blood and Famine’s ache, in the virus Pestilence meant to unleash, full of dark, horrible Death. Michael and Lucifer should still be causing the world to quake under their wrath for years to come, splitting the surface and letting the earth’s pain bleed out in lava and murderous ocean waves. Every spring would run red and salty, and every crop would die. Every angel would die.

“But instead it all lives to break over and over again, because Sam and his brother refuse to let it go. Because the two of you broke all the rules, and made destiny your bitch, as Dean would say, your world lives to break another day. Humans are extraordinary in their will, their ability to keep fighting, even when the universe turns on them. And you, Sam. You are the best among them. You are the embodiment of stubborn courage, my love. You are my hero. I have always believed in you.

“We are both lonely, Sam, and that is a fact. You are so high above the rest of an incredible species. You, my love, are alone because you are high above humanity. I fly above humanity because I am alone. Very different reasons, but the same result. Loneliness.

“This letter was meant to express my love to you, but instead, I've filled the page with melancholy and sorrow. I'm not a writer, Sam. I just don't have the talent, nor the patience for self-expression. I suppose Dean and I are more alike in that regard. We would rather fight impossible battles day in and day out, than try to talk about the battles on the inside.

“An ages-old celestial warrior, yet I'm entirely helpless when it comes to facing you, my friend. So I will continue to pretend that you are just that, simply a friend, simply a human I respect, so that you never find out you're actually every beautiful thing in my Father's world, that every miracle ever performed has led to you, that every use of my Grace has been you, but I never knew it until now.”

Castiel sighed one last time, and took the letter in one hand, created a spark to torch it.

At that moment, he heard a voice, and without meaning to, he let the flame smolder in an instant. “Castiel? Wherever you are, man, I need you. I'm hurting bad. Dean's gone, and...I don't know when he’ll be back. I'm out of options. Cas, please.”

The angel shoved the remains of his writing into his coat pocket and willed himself to the hunter’s side before the prayer was even complete.

***

Sam lay back in the bed, exhausted from the day's ordeal. Words rang in his mind again and again, a scolding from the angel who had arrived just in time to heal him.

“I wish you would call me as your first option, Sam,” his friend had berated him as he placed cool fingers on his forehead. “To hear that you call for me only when you are out of other options undermines a friendship we’ve cultivated over a stormy life.”

He had smiled in relief and laughed, and assured Castiel that it was only that he knew how busy the angel was and hated to interrupt him.

But Castiel had seemed particularly frustrated.

So he had promised to call earlier at the next crisis.

Castiel had wrapped him in his coat, and snapped that he wasn't encouraging him to have more incidents which resulted in injuries like these. Then he had asked after Dean. Upon learning his other friend’s location, he zapped Sam back to the bunker, straight to his own bed, then whirled out again to find Dean.

Sam turned onto his side and felt the crinkle of parchment. He reached into the pocket of the trench coat, to find a note written in lovely calligraphy. It was burned at one edge, but the writing was still clear.

There were tears and a smile on his face when Castiel returned to retrieve his coat.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are beautiful like Sam Winchester.


End file.
